1. Field
The present invention generally relates to mobile telecommunication terminals, and more specifically to methods and apparatus for facilitating communication by means of mobile telecommunication terminals in a multilingual environment.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
By the increased use of mobile telecommunication terminals many people are given the opportunity to get in contact with each other practically anywhere at any time. The contact may take the form of e.g. a voice call or a short text message. Examples of systems for providing these kinds of mobile services are DAMPS, PCM, GSM and UMTS.
In particular, the use of mobile telecommunication terminals for sending and receiving messages by means of for example, Short Messaging Service (SMS), Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Email and Instant Messaging (TM) has become very popular due to their fast and convenient way of exchanging information. By using a messaging service rather than establishing a voice communication, a user may not only save time but also money since the cost for sending a message is generally much lower than the cost for placing for example, a telephone call. Additionally, a received message may be stored in the mobile telecommunication terminal for later retrieval, a feature that is beneficial if the message for example, comprises an address, a schedule for a meeting, a telephone number etc.
Even though many mobile telecommunication terminals include functionality for sending and receiving messages, the way of entering text in the message is in most cases cumbersome due to the generally small size of the mobile telecommunication terminal. More specifically, the size of the input unit in a mobile telecommunication terminal, for example, a keyboard, an on-screen touch-sensitive keyboard or a navigation wheel or a joystick, is restricted by the overall size of the mobile telecommunication terminal, which makes entry of larger amounts of text cumbersome.
One way to facilitate the entering of text in mobile telecommunication terminals is by the provision of text prediction software, such as T9 from Tegic Communications, 1000 Dexter Avenue N., Suite 300, Seattle, Wash. 98109 USA. The text prediction software generally uses one or more dictionaries, which comprise commonly used words in different languages. For example, an English dictionary comprises words such as car, train, meeting, hour, etc. while a corresponding German dictionary comprises words such as Auto, Zug, Tagung, Stunde, etc. When a user of a mobile telecommunication terminal currently using an English dictionary is entering the letters “ho”, the prediction software displays a list of words starting with the letters “ho”, such as for example, the word “hour”, whereupon the user may select the word instead of entering all letters of that specific word.
However, even though the use of text prediction software facilitates the entering of text in a message, the user is still faced with the problem of selecting a suitable dictionary to use. For example, an English user with German friends may once in a while want to enter text in German. The user in this situation is compelled to switch dictionary language every time he or she addresses recipients with different native tongue. The problem of selecting correct dictionary language in a multi-language environment is even more eminent when a user is roaming and wants to change between many different dictionary languages many times a day. For example, a user who travels through Europe on a business trip may want to send messages many times a day for booking meetings, making reservations at hotels, etc., in different languages depending on his current location.
Some mobile telecommunication terminals provide text recognition and text to speech functions that provide voice feedback to a user. However, in speech recognition, automatic language identification from text is used but not very reliable. In addition, if the language of the sender is not known, the pronunciation of the contact name or words in the message may be unrecognizable or difficult to understand such as for example, when playing a prompt, such as a contact name from the phone book, or playing back a message using the voice user interface. For example, where an English user wants to play back a message in the Finnish language, using the voice user interface, the pronunciation of the words in the message would be far from perfect without switching the dictionary to a Finnish language dictionary. The same holds true when playing a prompt, such as for example, a contact name from the phone book. For example, if the name John Smith were played back with a Finnish language text to speech function, the pronunciation would not be correct. This is even more problematic where the user has contacts from several different countries and/or receives several messages in several different languages.
There is a need for a fast and reliable method for selecting a dictionary to use when using a text prediction scheme for entering text in a message or when playing a prompt or a message using a voice user interface.